Application of Value Engineering in Medical Science

Value Engineering applied in Medical Solutions

White Paper on ECAct 2001 implementation

White paper on ECAct2001:

Its Criminal to use electric geysers

It is criminal to use Electric Hot Water Geyser

When you use the electric geyser to heat water for your bath, Do you realise what you are contributing to the climate change through carbon emission:

Well, the 1 Kw water heater is the most common gadget in any house. And we proudly tell all the guests that we have geysers in all the bathrooms.

Did we realise what we are doing?

A 1 Kw heater consumes 1 Kwh or one unit of electricity in one hour.
This unit is available at our plug point after having consumed the about 30% transmission and distribution losses from the generating station.
This means, some one is generating 1.43 units somewhere else. ( for evey .7 Kw at the user end, another .3 Kw has to be generated, hence for 1 unit at user end, 1.43 units generated)It takes about 700 gms of coal to generate one unit of electricity.
So, for 1.43 units, some one is burning about 1000 gms of coal or one Kg. If we consider the ovrall efficiencies of the geysers, you could as well multiply the figures by almost 2.5 times.

This one Kg coal generates it's own part of the carbon di oxide.

Now look at the other way. 1 Kg coal contains about 4000 KCals of heat.

One more way of looking at this is to know that we burn coal to heat water, then make steam out of it, run a turbine through this steam, generate electricity, transmit it all the way, distribute it through the network, bring it to our plug point and then again use it to heat water.

Think seriously. Is it necessary for us to use electricity for heating water. Just try taking cold water bath. Its so soothing. And in turn, help environment, by contributing your own little bit.

I am doing it for more than twenty years. You can try it too.

After all, coal is not going to last for ever. A day will come when we will not have it at all.

My Social Responsibility project: Energy conservation and Renewable energy use at Dwarka Tirumala Temple town

This was sometime during the year 2003 when I happened to visit the temple town o Dwarka Tirumala, in West Godavari District of AP state. As I was to attend a marriage unction, I was lodged in one of the dharmashalas in the town.
In the early morning, when I got up and wanted to get ready for the marriage function. I could hear many voices out side my room, when every one was asking where and how to get hot water for taking bath. The host was finding it difficult to supply water to every one at the same time, as there was only one watchman in the dharmashala who used to help people with hot water. I was wondering as to why every one can't take bath with normal water like I have been doing for the past about 15 years.
Out of curiosity, I wanted to see how this man was heating water. There it was. The most conventional Indian way. Put water in a vessel on the chulha and feed wooden logs and fire them.
This immediately caught my attention and I started wondering as to how much fire wood might be burnt every year just for this one purpose. I started calculating the estimated consumption of fire wood per year and some back calculation as to how many trees might be used for the purpose. Further back calculation took me to the hectares of forests required to supply this wood and so on right up to the level of environmental impact, deforestation, carbon emission etc. etc.

It was a mind boggling figure that emerged. I started thinking about why not to do something about this subject. I asked myself as to what I can do about it and how I can do my own bit.

Incidentally, I was also a member of the Energy Conservation Mission (ECM) formed under the umbrella of the Institution of Engineers (India). I of course still continue to be the member. As a part of this institute, many of us like minded members had decided to devote some of our time for a good cause.

It was Captain Jalagam Rama Rao, honourary chairman of the ECM who initiated the process. He had a direct contact with the Chairman of the Temple trust, Mr. S. V. Sudhakar Rao, whose family is the patron of the temple too. Capt. Rao spoke to the chairman and fixed a meeting for me. This was one occasion when I happened to meet an open minded and forward looking person in the chairman of the temple trust.

In the first meeting, I shared my experience and observations during the previous trip. He immediately realised the larger impact of the situation. He himself was an environmentalist. I shared with him the idea as to why the temple town should not use the solar energy for this purpose. he readily agreed to implement it. My part of the job was very simple now. I identified one of the manufacturers of the solar water heating systems in hyderabad and asked him to the temple town and meet the authorities.
In the first instant, the temple got one of the 500 Litres per day capacity. Having seen the impact and the over all effect and advantge, the temple town has subsequently added more capacity in other dharmashalas and as of date, the temple town has a total of about 5,500 litres per day capacity.

I still remember the day I revisited the temple town and spoke to the authorities. While expressing their happiness about the systems, they however expressed that the capacity in the dharmashala was not enough. I started wondering as to why a dharmashala with just about 20 rooms can consume 500 litres per day of hot water. I decided to take a quick observational study and there it was. The management had given connections of hot water in all of the rooms individually. This is where the social responsibility of individual comes to surface. It was observed that generally, no one bothers whether the neighbour was getting enough water. There was an observed carelessness in usage of water, and also avoidable wastage.

As there was no possibility of educating the lodgers (every day a new set of people are staying in the rooms), I wanted to find an answer to the problem.

After considering all the possible ways, the simplest solution was implemented. All the connections to the bathrooms were disconnected and the connection was given in the open yard out side the rooms, and only one bucket was provided in each room. If any one wanted hot water, he or she has to come out of the room and fill the bucket in the open. This arrangement immediately solved the problem, as normally no one wants to come out half the way in the bath.


After this exercise, the management desired that I take up a full fledged study of the total energy system at the temple complex. The study was undertaken and many of the recommendations were promptly implemented by the management.

Recently, the management has approached the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) GOI and received a sanction to install a 700 watts solar photovoltaic lighting systems. There are plans to undertake some similar projects in the Goshala of the temple.